In recent years, a number of proposals of using, as an energy source, hydrogen that is clean energy have been made, and for example, development of automobiles to be driven by a fuel cell using hydrogen as a fuel is conducted. An exhaust gas from a fuel cell using hydrogen as a fuel does not contain nitrogen oxides, particulate matters, carbon dioxide, and the like which are contained in an exhaust gas from an internal combustion engine, and hence, such a fuel cell receives a lot of attention as a clean power source capable of suppressing environmental pollution and global warming.
However, a volume in storing hydrogen is large, and for example, in a fuel cell for automobile, a supply means of hydrogen that is the fuel is of a problem.
The following Patent Document 1 discloses a method for generating hydrogen by decomposing ammonia or the like and describes an apparatus for generating hydrogen for fuel cell having a decomposer of decomposing a hydrogen source composed of ammonia and/or hydrazine into nitrogen and hydrogen by a catalytic reaction and supplying them into a fuel cell; and furthermore, the following Patent Document 2 describes a hydrogen generating apparatus for efficiently generating hydrogen from ammonia, in which the invention of Patent Document 1 is improved, and a hydrogen generating method.
Meanwhile, miniaturization of a fuel cell per se is demanded, and this is aimed at utilization in place of an AC-DC convertor of a charging type secondary cell which is used for mobile phones, PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), digital cameras, notebook personal computers, and the like.